Looking forward to curating this textile show by the talented Advanced Textile Workshop students from Morley College responding to the magic of natural dyeing, the revelations of printing and the mysteries of textile construction. Themes transformed include the River Thames, road markings and personal journeys. Techniques involve surface design, hand crafting and machine stitch, felting and applique.
Cover Version blueprints by Zoë Burt for Studio 73 group show
SIDE A:
I am deeply connected to blue and can’t stop making blueprints – a magical process of camera-less photography. Stairway to Heaven is an all time Ledzeppelin classic from 1971 (the year photos of the earth were first photographed and seen from the moon) the song threads a folkloric tale, otherworldly, connecting heaven and earth. This particular print is also inspired by the Lambeth visionary artist William Blake from a 1793 engraving ‘I want I want” from a tiny book called The Gates of Paradise for children. In an anthropocene age of consumersism this image playfully resounds with the restless human spirit
& SIDE B:
Sound and Vision by David Bowie contains the lyrics “Blue Blue Electric Blue”… that’s the colour of my room where I will live. Being a Lambeth resident for many moons, I resonant with this tune.. Electric Avenue – a nearby street and the first to get electric light in London; Davis Bowie’s connections to the Brixton area and my love of the colour blue and making cyanotype prints. Blueprinting or cyanotype is an exciting way to create an image using sunlight and water. Cyanobacteria emerged billions of years ago absorbing water molecules from hydrogen and releasing oxygen as a by product thereby conjuring the first life on earth – ultimate blind blue green algae visionaries in a way. Bowie sings ‘waiting for the gift of sound and vision’ – sometimes it flashes down and connects us and inspiration follows….
To order a print, please contact the gallery
Studio 73 website
Unit 45, Second Avenue, Brixton Village Market – 17 February – 3 March 2010
For this event, I created an interactive workshop for Brixton market. This participatory event was created in collaboration with the 45 Collective and 198 Gallery.
People were invited to engage with the diversity of the entire market environment and create a cyanotype that expressed their unique experience of the space.
198at45: ZOË BURT’S OPENING & CYANOTYPE WORKSHOP from Jenny Gallego on Vimeo.
Artist in Residence for Climate Change Week, 20-27 March 2011
Participatory “planetary blueprint shift dress”
This residency in 2013 linked the flax growing project at Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses with London Printworks Trust.
As well as producing new cyanotype prints Zoë co-facilitated family textile print workshops.
Zoë was awarded the prestigious Timberland Earthkeeper grant for her work on the urban textile fibre growing project Seeds of Fashion. She collaborated with community gardens, schools and universities to inspire people to reconnect with where their clothes come from, and working together to grow a garment from seed within the M25.
This project, together with Cordwainers Garden and the London College of Fashion, was a 2015 Green Gown Awards finalist. Exhibits and talks and workshops about the project have been shown at the South London Botanical Institute, Brockwell Hall in Lambeth, the Royal Horticultural Society and the London Permaculture Festival.
The project also featured in Hand/Eye magazine in April 2015 and the Financial Times magazine in May 2015.
For more details of the project, see the Seeds of Fashion blog.
A Fibreshed for London (2015) from Jessica Smulders Cohen on Vimeo.
Lightbodies by Karen Livesey from Zoe Burt on Vimeo.
Awarded a residency from the Heritage Lottery and Fusion at Brockwell Lido in 2010, Zoë invited swimmers to make life-size poolside portraits using an early form of photography called cyanotype, or blueprinting.
The success of the venture enabled it to travel to other historically significant lidos, and an exhibition of the portraits was held in Brixton Village in 2010.
Buy a copy of Light and Water.
Download a copy of the Tooting Bec Lido Lightbodies book.
